Hi.
I ran the version of DOSBox you gave me, and set the blaster type to "none" and the oplmode=cms.
It sounded better but the sound effects were still annoying. The damage sound sounds like a high-pitched steel drum, and the Vux laser like a vibrating harpsichord, neither of which I like.

When I disabled MPU-401, no sound was produced. Is that how it's supposed to behave?

Deniz wrote:When I disabled MPU-401, no sound was produced. Is that how it's supposed to behave?

1. You have to start dosbox first.
2. Do all the mountings (you may type them in [autoexec] section of dosbox.conf so it is done autoamtically when you start dosbox)
3. You have to manualy type in game's file name to run game. If you do it somehow automatically cms won't play (a bug of dosbox)

You also have to start the game with /s:cms swich or disable mpu if you don't use /s:cms swich. (both should sound the same so check both to be sure)

Oh, interesting...
When I ran Starcon /s:cms from a GUI Frontend for DOSBox, CMS was not working. CMS works now from the command line. (Why does this happen?). Earlier it was playing MIDI sounds when I launched, because CMS was not detected.

Maybe I gotta go try this in DOS on a computer with a working PC speaker and compare the sound...

Well, the song doesn't sound that different from other renditions I heard with different sound settings.
What would make the most difference is to hear the battle sounds (e.g. earthling missile, vux laser, chenjesu crystal shard...)

See attached ZIP file for a Windows executable and changed source files. I used svn rv3742 as a base. I didn't bother finding all the libraries, so the binary doesn't support networking, image capturing, etc.

In addition to StarCon, I tested this in Keen 1, Secret Agent, Supaplex, Monkey Island 1, Prince 1, Bane of the Cosmic Forge and Digger, so nothing should be broken.

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You can hear the digitized intro sound in Perestroika with the patch, although there is a high-pitch tone as well. Wizball doesn't seem to be much better, and has a constant tone that wasn't there before. Can hear the digitized sound in some Cinemaware games where you couldn't before (again with the high-pitch tone throughout), and can hear something during the sound effects in The Three Stooges, but not intelligible.

Hearing something where there was nothing before is nice progress.

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Voodoo2s aren't 100mhz stockGeforce256 isn't released as a beta on New Years '99 under the Quadro brandDOS gaming isn't a bilinear 320x200 16:10DOS PCs aren't better than the MacintoshDOSBox is not for running Windows 9xSGL != Glide

Here's another revision. This one fixes Keen 1's sounds like NY00123s patch without breaking Monkey Island or Digger. Hard Drivin 2 motor sound now has a buzz, but it drowns out everything else. I need to investigate that more. A recording of Hard Drivin' 2's motor buzz from a real PC would be helpful.

Also, Hard Drivin 2 intro tune works if you use normal core and not dynamic core - dynamic core seems to change the timing of the port writes that affect the pc speaker.

Perestroika's whine is probably intentional. Games that use pulse width modulation with pc speaker suffer from whine if the carrier frequency is too low. Perestroika's seems to be around 9.5 kHz, which is clearly audible. How audible it is with a real spaker depends on the speaker's frequency response. Theoretically, by setting a lower "pcrate" in dosbox.conf you should be able to eliminate the whine (in this case, 16000 or less should eliminate frequencies above 8KHz). However, I need to implement proper filtering to the pc speaker code in order for that to be effective.

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Lowering pcrate helps Perestroika a great deal, but with Wizball the "whine" only becomes lower in pitch. Not sure, but I think both are using pulse widths. Would a low-pass filter make sense?

The digitized sound in 3 Stooges is much more audible, but still garbled. Please check out the speaker sound in Battle Bugs (digitized voice in mission briefings) if you get a chance -- not broken by your changes, though.

Very nice work, ripa. It's great to see (and hear) the speaker emulation improvements.

I should really say thanks for the patch in its current form!
Sound effects appear to be proper in Keen1, Keen4, DN1 and DDave. Digger clone sounds aren't broken either (at least in the very first level).
I have also tested digitized sounds in Ken's Labyrinth (as generated on a PC Speaker) and they seem to work, as on vanilla DOSBox v0.74.

Regarding the high-pitch tone, I do remember hearing that in one random game at least, during a digitized speech actually being outputted from that little speaker (-_-). As hinted here, there may not be any specific "genuine" behavior regarding the tone (e.g. if you hear one or not).

Lowering pcrate helps Perestroika a great deal, but with Wizball the "whine" only becomes lower in pitch. Not sure, but I think both are using pulse widths. Would a low-pass filter make sense?

A better low-pass filter would work. I'll try implementing this at some point.

The digitized sound in 3 Stooges is much more audible, but still garbled. Please check out the speaker sound in Battle Bugs (digitized voice in mission briefings) if you get a chance -- not broken by your changes, though.

The speaker sfx in the EGA version of Battle Chess isn't working; but the VGA version still works. Note that the EGA version only has sfx for battles; the VGA version also has sfx for movement.

Some ancient text-mode intros by the demoscene group Sorcerers have speaker sound that doesn't work. Pouet.net links: Atom, Nope

These cases might be due to unimplemented modes commented upon in the patched source, but thought I'd point them out because they work with official source.

I'll put them in my backlog.

hard_drivin_2_title.mp3from a 286 pc. On a 386 the music is faster.

Thanks! Could you record the driving sound too? If possible, have the microphone a bit further away to prevent clipping.

I have noticed there are also some silent engine sounds when you are not driving (before you click the mouse to start driving): check the silent_loud file.
I wonder is it a game bug that the motor sound is so silent when not driving?
Although when you click the mouse to start and are not driving there is a loud engine too even when not moving so maybe the silent one is something we shouldn't hear.
Also there are some silent sounds when in the menu when selecting tracks/gears (so this could confirm we shouldn't hear it too).

BTW I am not using a microphone but i am touching one of pcspeaker's wire (actually the screw used to connect the wire to the speaker) with a minijack tip connected to "line in" in my modern computer. So the quality should be very good.
I just silented the recording volume in the mixer to get rid of the clipping. (it is set to almost zero (16 tapps of up arrow from the minimum (the slider moved up by two pixels only) )
When recording the silent_loud file i set the volume slider to max so that the silent sounds are recorded too.

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